Chapter 86

Seeing that he had stopped patting the child, and sensing that the baby was about to wake, Chen Jue quickly raised his hand: "Fine, my bad. Just help me pass along those words, and give him this jar of ointment."

Chen Jue placed the small jar of ointment he had prepared in advance on the table.

Huo Jilin picked up the jar and said casually, "I can see you're quite attentive to him, worried about him getting hurt."

What about himself? He wasn't small either! Huo Jilin gave Chen Jue a side-eye.

Chen Jue had no idea what he was thinking and simply said, "I'm a doctor."

Huo Jilin took a deep breath but couldn't help asking, "Is your type someone like Zhang Yan or Zhou Qingzhu?"

He had no problem with gē'er, and besides, Chen Jue came from the same world as him—both into guys. They wouldn't clash in bed, would they?

What the hell was that about?

Chen Jue didn't understand: "What?"

Huo Jilin took another deep breath and looked at him steadily: "What type of person do you like?"

Chen Jue glanced at him, confused. With his situation now, how could he even think about liking someone? Could he marry Qingzhu or marry Zhang Yan?

Chen Jue told him, "I don't have a type I like, and I never will."

In his previous life, he had been too busy—never even dated before dying. In this life, he had debuted as a pregnant widower whose husband had died, killing any chance of that.

Oh, but now his husband had come back to life—except that person was Huo Jilin. Like, date him?

Chen Jue flinched and sat up straight, resisting the urge to rub his arms. He had to shut that thought down completely.

Huo Jilin froze as well.

Chen Jue had just shut that door.

He'd already been picturing them sharing a bed in three months, but Chen Jue had never even thought about it.

They already had a child together, but Chen Jue had never thought about a relationship with him.

Or was Chen Jue just killing his hopes outright?

So he didn't like him—was this an indirect rejection?

Huo Jilin didn't know if his face showed it, but the sudden hollow feeling in his chest was real.

Like he'd just fallen out of the sky.

He sat rigid, barely keeping it together.

The baby seemed to pick up on the tension between them. After the continuous patting stopped, he woke up, his little mouth scrunching up as he started to wail, which snapped Huo Jilin out of his freeze.

Huo Jilin instinctively picked up the child and paced along the edge of the kang, quietly letting out a breath as he walked. He felt like such a loser, especially with Chen Jue—he kept tripping up over and over.

Chen Jue let go of the awkwardness from earlier. A baby's cry was contagious—it made everyone want to comfort him.

Chen Jue asked, "Did he wet himself?" He'd had half a bowl of goat's milk before bed, so he couldn't be hungry.

Huo Jilin reached into the swaddle and felt around: "No pee. Probably just fighting sleep."

"When... did he start getting his days and nights mixed up? A few days now?" Chen Jue remembered Huo Jilin pacing in the outer room in the middle of the night last night. Seeing the familiar posture, and then looking at the child on Huo Jilin's shoulder with wide eyes and no trace of sleepiness, Chen Jue couldn't help asking.

A messed-up sleep schedule was a pain.

Huo Jilin glanced at him. Chen Jue only just realized the kid had been up all night for days now.

It started when he was about twenty-something days old—sleeping all day and wide awake at night.

By modern time, it was almost ten at night. A baby should've been asleep hours ago, but Huo Yu's eyes were still wide and alert. It'd be fine if he'd just lie down, but no—he'd cry to be picked up after a minute.

Chen Jue felt a little awkward and traded off holding him with Huo Jilin. Huo Jilin paced the floor by the kang, while Chen Jue circled the kang table on it.

When they caught each other's eyes, both looked totally helpless.

They totally got why parents lost their minds at 3 a.m.

Huo Jilin said to Chen Jue, "I'll make good money and hire a wet nurse! Have her take him far, far away."

He said it through gritted teeth, and you could hear the grinding.

Chen Jue coughed and said, "Alright."

He felt a little guilty. During the day, he'd tried to keep the kid awake, but once Zhang Yan left, no one was around to play with the baby, and the sun put him right back to sleep.

Chen Jue was reading, looked up, and the kid was already out cold.

Not only did Chen Jue fail to wake him, he ended up dozing off holding him too.

Reading wore you out...

He'd napped with the baby, so he was actually kinda wired now.

Chen Jue didn't tell Huo Jilin this. Seeing Huo Jilin cover another yawn, he coughed: "I've got him. You go sleep."

Huo Jilin told him to lie down: "You sleep. He'll go down soon—just pat him a few hundred times..."

A few hundred times...

After Huo Jilin got the baby to sleep, he lay down next to Chen Jue and passed out.

Chen Jue couldn't sleep, so he watched him for a bit.

They were scared of squishing the baby, so once he was asleep, they put him on the other side. So Huo Jilin ended up right next to him, close enough to see clearly.

Huo Jilin was good-looking—sharp, carved features, clear even in sleep.

Actually, sleeping Huo Jilin was even easier on the eyes. He wasn't being a pain, wasn't giving him a hard time—just lying there quietly, leaning on him, looking so...

Soft and peaceful.

Chen Jue didn't know where that word came from.

He felt all mixed up. After a while, he finally dozed off silently reciting Zhongjing's acupuncture techniques.

By day, the kid was a little angel again, his round, black-grape eyes staring at you like you were the only person in the world. His little face, fair with a peach-petal blush, made you wanna kiss him.

Huo Jilin held him up and kissed both cheeks, totally forgetting his middle-of-the-night vow to have the wet nurse take him far away.

After over a week of this mess, the kid finally got his days and nights straight and could sleep for long stretches. A small bowl of goat's milk before bed, and he'd sleep four shichen—enough for the adults to get some rest.

Huo Jilin finally felt that he had recovered. Taking care of the child was more exhausting than the wilderness special training drills he had done before.

He held Huo Yu in his arms and shook his head helplessly, having no choice but to believe it. Uncle Liu had said that babies would get their days and nights mixed up during the month after birth, and it would get better after the month was over. He hadn't believed it at first, but now it was simply the truth.

Huo Yu was one month old.

On the day he turned one month old, quite a few people still came to the Huo house. Although the local custom was to hold a banquet at a hundred days, the villagers still came bearing baskets of eggs and pairs of shoes for the child.

Not only because Huo Jilin had helped them avoid various taxes before, but also because his medicine workshop had been paying workers on time for two months straight.

And the business was looking more and more prosperous. Since the demand for medicine packets was outpacing supply, Shopkeeper Li was coming by several times a month.

Anyone could see that his medicine workshop was bound to thrive. They all wanted to build some connection with the Huo family, hoping that when the workshop expanded, more people would be hired.

Huo Jilin also specially invited Uncle Liu and Qingshan's wife to cook that day, to host the well-wishers. He wasn't just celebrating the baby's one-month milestone, but also Chen Jue finishing his confinement period.

Huo Jilin had slept well and woke up bright and early, full of energy. Once the baby was awake, he started getting him dressed.

He dressed Huo Yu up like a little god of wealth. It was the little cotton outfit Chen Jue's mother had made. On the one-month day, the baby was supposed to wear clothes made by the maternal grandmother.

Chen Jue's mother had made it with great care.

The color was festive too—red silk and satin, wrapped in a matching swaddle. It was as festive as could be.

Chen Jue found it amusing to watch: "It actually looks pretty good."

The little cotton outfit was deliberately made bigger, so the baby's hands were covered, and he waved his little arms in frustration.

Chen Jue rolled up the sleeves for him, revealing his delicate little hands clenched into tiny fists. It was impossibly cute.

Huo Jilin looked at Chen Jue. There was a gentle smile on Chen Jue's face, like snow melting on a mountain.

Chen Jue used to be an iceberg, but now he was like an April sky.

Huo Jilin cleared his throat, picked up the baby, and said to him, "It's cold now. You can wear that rabbit fur coat I got you."

Chen Jue had always thought the rabbit fur coat was too warm and had never worn it.

Chen Jue didn't decline either. Huo Jilin had his aristocratic side, and he had decent taste in putting outfits together. The white outer coat was paired with a sapphire blue long robe underneath.

After putting it on, Chen Jue stretched out his arms on the kang and spun around once, humoring the man who bought it.

Huo Jilin looked at Chen Jue in his new clothes and was momentarily stunned. If he weren't standing on this earthen kang, he'd look like some refined young master from a noble family, born with an air of distinction.

White suited Chen Jue.

In a white lab coat, he was like a distant god. Now, in the same white, the fluffy collar softened his coldness, making his face even more handsome and striking—impossible to look away from.

The baby in his arms seemed to agree, letting out an "ah" from inside the blanket, as if echoing him.

Huo Jilin looked down and smiled at the baby: "You think he looks good too, huh?"

He looked up again and said to Chen Jue, "Good-looking. My taste has never failed me!"

Chen Jue snorted lightly. That was a shameless thing to say—he was naturally good-looking to begin with. The clothes on him were just the icing on the cake.

Even if he wore plain white sackcloth, he'd look good in mourning clothes. He'd looked good back then when he was wearing them for him too!

Chen Jue also thought, just as shamelessly, that whenever he was with Huo Jilin, even just talking, within a few sentences he'd want to argue with him. It had to be karma from a past life.

The two bickered for a bit. Chen Jue held the baby while Huo Jilin cooked. Breakfast was simple but nutritious. Chen Jue still ate the confinement meal, and Huo Jilin had gotten the hang of making it.

After breakfast, Chen Jue headed to the medicine workshop, showing up in front of everyone in his white mourning clothes.

This wasn't his first time there since the confinement. When the weather was warm, he'd come by to check. Before the medicine was packaged, he'd come to inspect, because he had to be the one to make sure the efficacy was right.

But this time, the visit meant something different—it meant he could get back to work from now on.

The workers were all very happy. This was the medicine workshop, after all. There had to be a pillar of support, and that pillar was the one who helped them confirm the heat, determine the efficacy, and could identify medicines with just his tongue.

That was something even the other boss, Huo Jilin, couldn't do.

With Chen Jue there, they felt like they had their backbone.